Two months after IBM decided to try to revive Lotus Symphony as a rival to Office, it says the free Symphony beta 2 has been downloaded by 250,000 registered users, 88% of whom are Microsoft customers.

Twelve percent are using the Linux version, IBM says, and 50% of the users are outside the US in France, Brazil, China, Japan, Germany, Spain, Holland and Italy although the software is only available in English.

Sensing an opportunity, IBM says it's accelerated development in response to user demand, making the download process for the three programs - the word processor, presentation code and spreadsheet - 100% faster and done in a click - and upping performance on average 50% faster.

IBM has also doubled the Symphony development team, headquartered in China, to over 70 software programmers.

According to IBM Collaboration/Lotus software general manager Mike Rhodin, "Lotus Symphony has struck a deeper chord in society than any commercial product we've seen….In this age of innovation, why should we pay a premium for the basic instruments that allow us to record information rather than focus on what we do with it? IBM will continue to make it easier to access Symphony until it opens the door to innovation on every desktop."

To that end, IBM has loosen up its licensing and is encouraging third parties to provide Symphony online or bundled without special agreements or visiting the Symphony web page at ibm.com. It says several media outlets are planning to redistribute it.

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